Sir, - There is probably be no more lethal combination than the military and the nuclear industry when it comes to suppressing the truth. The present scandal over the use of depleted uranium (DU) in the Gulf and the Balkans is a classic model of such deception. We now know that, despite its denials, that NATO has long been aware of the health dangers of DU weapons. Four years ago, medical advisers within the British ministry for defence warned that exposure to such weaponry could increase the risk of lung, lymph and brain cancer. And as far back as 1991, the US National Laboratory at Los Alamos admitted the continuing "concern regarding the impact of DU on the environment" and said that if DU weapons did not prove effective on the battlefield their use might become "politically unacceptable".
Unfortunately, the remark by NATO's Secretary General, George Robinson, on RTE radio this week that DU was "crucial to NATO operational effectiveness" sums up the military's response. But DU's "effectiveness" has been not just in piercing armoured tanks and killing soldiers, but also in killing civilians and in contaminating large areas of Iraq and the former Yugoslavia with lingering radiation.
During my recent visit to Iraq as part of a parliamentary deputation, I received first-hand accounts of a decade of illnesses following the Gulf War. Research by such eminent scientists as low-level radiation specialist Dr Chris Busby, Dr Rosalie Bertell, and the International Uranium Centre in Canada have substantiated the longterm ill-health effects of DU weapons. Now there are instances of illnesses and cancer deaths among peacekeeping soldiers serving in the Balkans.
Surely it is time that the Irish Government spoke out unequivocally against these weapons. The Government's deference to NATO on this issue is inexplicable. Not only are our own Irish soldiers possibly being exposed to DU radiation, but such weapons are surely "politically unacceptable". Their use should be seen as a war crime.
Ireland now has a seat on the UN Security Council. We should use it to demand a complete ban on DU weapons, a clean-up of the contaminated areas in the Balkans and Iraq, and assistance to those soldiers and civilians who have been affected by these weapons. - Yours, etc.,
John Gormley, TD, Green Party, Dail Eireann, Dublin 2.